Celestial Inventories

by Steve Rasnic Tem

  shank …

  Alejandro adopted his father’s techniques to his own dream, making of the skew chisel a knife for carving all the faces of his mother he could remember, all the postures of his father’s hands during a day spent carving, paring and drawing the fine lines of their marriage, using chamfer cuts, hollow cuts, and rocking cuts to shape the designs on his black walnut bowl, using the scrapers to smooth out his mother’s undying cheeks, the rifflers to define the delicate contours of his father’s fingertips as they caressed his mother’s face, Alejandro’s head, and the sides of this bowl itself.

  Until he finished, and took the bowl with its offering of plain water to wet his father’s silent throat.

  *

  Make him drink. Speak to him of your mother. Shake him from his dream. The witch cow had said these things and many more. He had spoken with a cow and he had spoken with their wooden house and he had spoken with his dead mother. Now it was time to speak with his father who lay weeping in the other room. He misses holding her.

  Silently he entered his father’s bedroom, stepping in exaggerated fashion like a young fool, gesturing in mute pantomime. He showed his father what he had made with his hands.

  He told his father how unhappy he had been, and how much he missed his mother, what he remembered of her, some things she had done and said to him, how much he missed the carving and the talk of the workers in the shop, and how much he missed his father’s own talk. He told him how angry he was sometimes.

  He told him of the cat and the cow, his snake broken into two halves of staff, of the goat with a woman’s eyes, and the great tree that his mother had dreamed out of her grave.

  And then they shared their drink of sadness. All living things must drink at the place of their beginnings.

  And later the old men and old women would tell how there had been so much weeping in that house, and yet how now and then, could be heard the healing laughter.

  For what changes, lives.

  INVISIBLE

  Over the past few months something painful and awkward had come into the light. Ray was never quite able to define it, and of course did not feel he could check out this perception with anyone else. It would be an odd thing to say, and he knew he had a reputation for saying odd things, although no one had actually told him so.

  There were days he could barely stand to open his eyes. Something in the atmosphere, perhaps, that stung the cornea. Every object he looked at was outlined in bright white light. A brilliance he was not supposed to see, a visibility not meant for him. These haloing strokes appeared hesitant, as if part of an unsure painting.

  It was the kind of light he imagined you would see at the end of the world: a sad, quiet fading of form and colour, as if all earthly materials were dissolving from a mass failure of conviction.

  Although he did not expect confirmation of his anxieties, or really want one, Ray listened to the hourly radio weather reports, noting the announcer’s tone when he spoke words such as “overcast,” “upper atmosphere,” and “visibility.” There was anxiety in the slight, random trembling of the otherwise smooth voice. Did the weatherman hold something back? The answers were all there, he suspected, floating through the air, hiding in the aftertaste of water, momentarily visible in the bright, painful regions of reflected sun, if one only knew the right way to see, to taste, to hear.

  He called his wife two or three times during the day to see how she was feeling, thinking she might be sensing something similar, but he was unable to ask her directly. At some point they’d stopped authenticating each other’s sadder perceptions about their places in the universe.

  At least in the office there were few windows, and the predictable lines of the cubicles were comfortably familiar. Weather ceased to be a factor once he arrived at work.

  Anyone up for lunch? Ray had waited an hour or so for someone to make the invitation. He normally timed his work so he could be available any time between noon and one.

  He stood up in his cubicle. Several other heads popped up out of the maze of short, upholstered partitions, like prairie dogs out of their holes. The others waved to the speaker—Marty, a lead programmer—and grabbed their coats. After an awkward pause with Marty staring straight at him, Ray tentatively raised a hand and waved as well. Marty’s expression didn’t change. He couldn’t have missed Ray’s intention.

  Ray saved his work, jotted down some notes, stood and slipped on his coat. He got to the elevators just as the doors were closing. His coworkers stared out at him without recognition. No one tried to stop the doors. He waved again, said, “Hey!” He ran down four flights to the lobby. He almost ran over a woman on the second floor landing. He stopped to apologize but could see the distaste in her eyes (or was it pity?). Out of breath, he reached the outside doors. He watched as they pulled away, all of them jammed into Marty’s green Ford. How did they get out there so quickly? Again he waved as the car swung past the entrance and out the driveway. A woman from another office scooted by him and out the door. It suddenly embarrassed him that she’d seen him with his hand up, waving to no one, greeting nothing as if nothing might wave back, and he lowered it.

  Ray saved his work, jotted down some notes, stood and slipped on his coat. He got to the elevators just as the doors were closing. His coworkers stared out at him without recognition. No one tried to stop the doors. He waved again, said, “Hey!” He ran down four flights to the lobby. He almost ran over a woman on the second floor landing. He stopped to apologize but could see the distaste in her eyes (or was it pity?). Out of breath, he reached the outside doors. He watched as they pulled away, all of them jammed into Marty’s green Ford. How did they get out there so quickly? Again he waved as the car swung past the entrance and out the driveway. A woman from another office scooted by him and out the door. It suddenly embarrassed him that she’d seen him with his hand up, waving to no one, greeting nothing as if nothing might wave back, and he lowered it.

  He went back upstairs to his cubicle, hoping no one had seen him return. He went back to work on the day’s projects, not thinking to remove his coat. From time to time hunger pains stroked his belly like nervous fingers. He had a lunch in the office refrigerator—he always had a lunch in the office refrigerator—but he didn’t bother to go get it.

  The sky outside went from a misty white to a deep blue, then to greys and oranges, as if painted on an enormous turning disk. He did not learn this from looking out the window but saw it reflected in his computer screen. Days passed in this awkwardly glimpsed view of the world. He could feel his hands on the keyboard begin the painful petrifaction that must surely lead to transparency. At some point Marty and the others wandered past as they returned from lunch, louder than usual. Marty eventually brought some papers by for Ray to look at. There was no mention of the missed lunch. Ray thought perhaps his intentions had been misunderstood. They were all well-meaning people here. The world was full of well-meaning people. It wasn’t their fault he didn’t know how to conduct himself.

  At the end of the day he took the stairs down to the parking lot, leaving fifteen minutes early. He did this every day. It was unlikely he’d be fired for such an offense, but he somewhat enjoyed imagining the possibility. Perhaps an announcement would be made. Perhaps he would be forced to exit through the reception area carrying his box of meagre belongings as other employees stood and watched. Would any of them wish him well in his future endeavours?

  Outside the air shimmered with possibility. He did his best to ignore it.

  *

  Traffic was again heavy and slow, the cars unable to maneuver beyond the occasional lane change. There was a quality of anger in the way people sped up and slowed down, changed lanes, slipped into the breakdown lane in order to make an illegal pass on the left. The anger made Ray feel as if some explosion was imminent, some volcanic eruption of blame he might drown in.

  But he didn’t mind the traffic per se—it gave him the opportunity to gaze into the interiors of the other cars, to
see what the people were doing when they thought no one was looking, observe the little things (singing, grooming, picking their noses) they did to divert tedium, follow the chase of expressions across their faces, all of them no doubt feeling safe and assured of their invisibility.

  His was simply one more can awash in a sea of metal. He was content to wait until the tide brought him home.

  *

  Janice didn’t turn around when Ray walked into the kitchen. “It’s almost ready,” she said. “We have to be there by six-thirty. We can’t be late.”

  “If we’re late, she might think we’re not coming. We can’t let that happen.”

  “No, we can’t.” She dealt slices of tomato rapidly into the stew. “So, what did you do for lunch today? Did you go out with anybody?”

  She always tried to sound casual about it. She always failed.

  “No.” He started to make up a satisfactory reason, then gave up. “I worked through.” He looked over her shoulder into the bubbling liquid, always fascinated by the way carrots and meat, potatoes, peas, and corn blended simply through constant collision. He pulled back when he remembered how much she hated him looking over her shoulder when she cooked. “How did you do today?”

  She dropped a handful of peas into the pot. She filled a pan with water, slid it onto the burner, took two eggs from the fridge. “No one noticed my new hair. A hundred and twenty dollars. If it had been anybody else, they’d say something. Even if they didn’t like it.”

  She stood there with her back still turned, eggs in hand. Ray reached to touch her arm but stopped an inch or so away. “I’m sorry, honey. I don’t know why that happens.”

  “It’s always the same conversation, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s like talking about the weather for us.”

  “It shouldn’t happen that way,” he said, not knowing what else to say. When she didn’t respond, he started to go upstairs to change.

  “But what I hate most is that it’s all just too damn silly!”

  He paused in the doorway. “It’s not silly if it’s hurting you.” She was crying, still with her back to him. The right thing to do would be to put his arms around her. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t want to talk about this. He didn’t want to say that he, too, felt it was silly and stupid and he felt small and petty every time his own feelings were similarly hurt. And he didn’t want to say that he was angry with her for not being better at this than he was. She’d always been the more socially adept of the two of them—if she couldn’t solve this, what hope did he have?

  “There are people without homes,” she said, “people who have lost everything. There are people whose every day is a desperate gesture, and here I am crying because some silly women at the office where I work didn’t notice my new hairdo!”

  “I know. But it’s more than that.”

  “It’s more than that. It’s the lunches. It’s the conversations. It’s all the moments you’re not invited in.”

  “It’s feeling like whatever you say, they’re not hearing you. That no matter how much you wave your arms and jump up and down, they’re not seeing you. You feel stupid and crazy and paranoid, because you know it doesn’t make much sense—it has to be something you’re doing, but you never can find a good enough reason in the things you’re doing to explain it.”

  “And when you … when we die, no one but our daughter is going to remember we were ever here.”

  “I just can’t believe that,” he said.

  “Really? You don’t believe that?”

  “I can’t accept it,” he said.

  *

  The high school parking lot was full and then some. It was all senior kids in the show, and for many of these parents it would be their final opportunity to see their children as children, even though so few of them looked like children anymore.

  “I never imagined her this way,” he said.

  “What way?”

  “Grown up. It’s ridiculous, but I never imagined this day would actually come.”

  “Wouldn’t it be sad if it never came, Ray?”

  “Oh, of course. But still, it feels as if she just went out to play one day, and never came back.”

  They ended up in the overflow parking by a rundown grocery. They crossed the street nervously, watching the traffic. Visibility was poor. Wet streets and black, shiny pavement, multicoloured lights drifting in the wind.

  Ray kept glancing at the front entrance as he pushed forward. Around them the headlights and car reflections floated randomly, like glowing insects looking for somewhere solid to land.

  The lobby was packed with parents and their children, leaving little room for movement. Molly would already be on stage, waiting nervously behind the curtain. Janice wanted to rush into the auditorium, always afraid they’d be left without a seat, but Ray held back. Like Janice he hated crowds, but he needed to take in this part of it one final time. He would never experience this again. No more opportunities to act like other parents, in front of other parents.

  These were families he had seen at dozens of events over the years, not that he really knew any of them. Some looked so pleased they actually glowed. But most had the anxious look of someone who has forgotten, and forgotten what they have forgotten.

  He couldn’t focus on any single group or conversation for more than a few seconds. He closed his eyes against the growing insect buzz, opened them again to clusters of coloured dots vibrating asynchronously. If he were only a little smarter, he might understand what was going on here.

  A man a few feet away exclaimed “Hey there!” and started toward him. Ray recognized him as a neighbour from a few blocks away—the daughter had been in Molly’s classes for years. Ray felt his face grow warm as the neighbour—Tom? Was his name Tom?—held out his hand. Deep in his pants pocket Ray’s hand itched, sweaty, as he began to pull it out.

  “Quite the special evening, don’t you think?” said Tom, if that was his name.

  Ray had his hand out and managed a smile. Tom looked somewhat startled, nodded curtly, then brushed past to shake the hand of a man behind Ray. Ray wiggled his fingers as if stretching them, then stuck his hand back into his pocket.

  Janice tugged at his sleeve. “Let’s just go inside,” she said, strain in her voice. But Ray didn’t think he could move.

  The lights blinked twice, and he was thinking there might be a power outage when he realized, of course, they were signalling the curtain. The crowd pushed forward and he felt himself dragged along, Janice’s hand clutched in his.

  When the curtain rose and the music started—an impressive storm of violins and horns—they craned their necks looking for Molly. The bandleader tended to move her for almost every performance. Ray always had the fear that she would be left out, that she’d be depressed that evening and hide out in the bathroom (she could be surprisingly dramatic for an offspring of such parents), or that she’d be miscued, misplaced. He was always prepared to defend her with his anger, for it was one thing to ignore him, or to ignore Janice, but it was beyond bearing for the daughter they both adored to be ignored, to have her feelings hurt.

  But there she was! Second row back, close to the end, her black bangs whipping as she vigourously sawed with the bow. He could feel Janice settle back with relief. He sighed and started to lean back himself when he heard the high cry of a violin and looked up, already knowing it was Molly, playing the first solo part of the night, her eyes streaming. Leaning so far forward he could breathe the warmth of the woman’s head in front of him, Ray felt himself beginning to cry and buried his face in his hands as his daughter’s violin made that sweet, lonely sound floating high into the rafters and beyond.

  He barely heard the rest of the concert, but it sounded impressively professional. Not that he was qualified to judge, but it had none of the rough, slightly off-key flavour he had expected. Nothing to impress the way Molly’s moment in the spotlight had, but quite good, surely, none the less. He and Janice decided to sit through th
e break, not wanting to wade into that crowd scene again. He watched the audience: some still on the edges of their seats, some leaning back in bored, awkward semblances of relaxation. A few with heads bowed, touching each other, as if praying.

  Did any of these people realize they were being watched? In their private moments did they imagine they, too, were invisible?

  He glanced back up at the stage. Molly was staring at him. He felt a rush of embarrassment, hoping she didn’t think he had been ignoring her performance. She looked smaller, younger, and it made him think of when it seemed she had been mostly his and not this almost-adult travelling at the speed of light out of his world. Claire didn’t invite me to her sleepover and I’m, like, her third-best friend! The way she had looked up at him that night, surrounded and embraced by toys she’d soon find babyish, he had thought she was demanding some explanation. It was as if she’d suddenly discovered she’d inherited his leprosy—why hadn’t he told her before?

  “These things happen, sweetheart.” Of course they do, especially in this family. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” Because she wasn’t aware of you or your feelings. “Sometimes you just have to be the organizer, the party-thrower, and invite her.” It had been good advice, but he had prayed she wouldn’t follow it. What would he say to her when they ignored her invitations?

  In fact, Molly did not follow his advice, and he never heard another word from her on the subject. Perhaps she understood better than her parents. A child prodigy in the realm of invisibility. If she had friends after that, if she was invited places, she didn’t share that information.

  After the concert they made their way backstage to congratulate her, even though the seeming aggressiveness of the crowd agitated him. Janice pressed herself as close to the walls as possible, her cheekbone practically rubbing the brick. Finally they stood huddled together backstage as rivers of people flowed around them, spinning off into laughing, celebratory groups. Ray scanned the room for Molly, thinking that of course none of this should be any cause for anxiety, but he felt a rising tide of nervousness, beginning with an itchiness in the bottoms of his feet, tightening his calves and creating small but intense shooting pains in his knees. He held his head up stiffly and gulped for air. The room grew suddenly grey, the people moving around him outlined in ice and silver. He held one hand out, the skin ragged around the outlines, fading.